Ukraine's push against rebels comes to a screeching halt

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SLOVYANSK, Ukraine A military operation that the Ukrainian government said would confront pro-Russia militants in the east of the country unraveled in disarray Wednesday with the entire contingent of 21 armored vehicles that had separated into two columns surrendering or pulling back before nightfall. It was a glaring humiliation for the new government in Kiev.

While gunshots were fired throughout the day, and continued sporadically through the evening in this town that is occupied by pro-Russia militants, it was unclear whether anybody had been wounded.

One armored column stopped when a crowd of men drinking beer and women yelling insults gathered in front of them, and its commander later agreed to hand over assault rifles to the separatists they were sent to fight.

Another column from the same ostensibly elite unit, the 25th Dnipropetrovsk paratrooper brigade, surrendered not only its weapons but also its tracked and armored vehicles, letting militants park them as trophies, under a Russian flag, in a central square in Slovyansk.

A pro-Russia militant then climbed into the driver's seat of one and spun the vehicle around on its tracks, screeching and roaring, to please the crowd.

The events underscored the weakness of Ukraine's interim government. Unable to exercise authority over its military, officials increasingly seem powerless to contain a growing rebellion by pro-Russia militants that has spread to at least 10 cities.

In a tactical error, the Ukrainian soldiers had no accompanying force to control crowds. Military helicopters buzzed overhead but were of no help to the soldiers' quandary.

They faced not only the civilians, but behind them a force of well-armed men in unmarked green uniforms, who Western governments have said are either Russian soldiers or Russia-equipped militants. These soldiers were well-armed and carried radios and ammunition pouches. Some had rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The Ukrainian contingent that surrendered handed over the vehicles to men who drove them to the central plaza of Slovyansk, about 120 miles from the Russian border, and parked them there for all to see, the flags of Russia and the newly declared and wholly unrecognized People's Republic of Donetsk flapping.

In Kiev, the Defense Ministry initially denied the armored vehicles had been captured. Sergei Sobolev, acting head of the Fatherland Party in Parliament, then claimed the armored vehicles had flown Russian flags as part of an ingenious subterfuge to penetrate pro-Russia crowds.

The military later conceded six vehicles had been captured but said nothing of the surrender of rifles.

“We try not to criticize our authorities, but it is obvious that we have more and more problems,” said Dmytro Tymchuk, a former military officer and director of the Center of Military and Political Research, a Kiev-based research group.

Elsewhere, armed separatists reportedly seized the City Hall building in the provincial capital of Donetsk; they already controlled the regional administration building. Militants blockaded an administrative building in Yanakiyeve, east of Donetsk. The Ministry of Defense said an officer and an enlisted soldier had been kidnapped in the Luhansk region.

A Russian website news portal, Regnum, citing an unnamed Polish diplomat, reported that Ukraine's deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, intended to travel to eastern Ukraine this weekend. He has been living in Russia.

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